Ideas@TheCentre
Invoking Jesus
English essayist and novelist, George Orwell, famously remarked, ‘We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.’
Those depths deepened earlier this week when critics reacted to Tony Abbott’s claim that boatpeople were acting in an un-Christian manner by ‘coming through the back door.’
It was an unwise answer to a foolish question.
Abbott was replying to a radio caller in Perth who asked him why his attitude to asylum-seekers was un-Christian.
The question was foolish because it made a fallacious appeal to Christian authority in a bid to attack Abbott.
It neither made an attempt to offer a Christian analysis of a policy position, nor did it test the extent to which Abbott’s own Christian faith may have informed his political decisions.
Abbott’s answer was unwise because he allowed himself to be drawn into the questioner’s fallacious cycle of reasoning.
The emotive slogan ‘un-Christian’ was hurled at Abbott like a shoe. He picked it up and hurled it back.
When critics such as recently retired bishop Pat Power then attacked Abbott on Radio National Breakfast, a smug but indefinite ‘progressive’ consensus about what being Christian actually means wafted across the airwaves.
Something to do with being kind? Going the extra mile? Doing unto others? Despite the vibe, the critics never got specific.
It’s time to re-state the obvious: No policy can be run through any single religious filter in a bid to infuse it with the characteristic of being a specifically Christian policy.
Politicians who are Christians may believe sincerely they are discharging their duties in accordance with their religious beliefs.
They are likely to have different views about the role of markets, the price of carbon, and the freedom of the press. But all of them are likely to have a sincere, personal faith – meaning that they are Christians.
Christianity is generally acceptable in the Australian public square only when it is used to defend fashionable policies. Being Christian means being a force for ‘compassion,’ ‘reasonableness,’ and even ‘sustainability.’
But the moment someone who happens to be a Christian promotes an unfashionable point of view, the rules change.
Christianity then becomes an indicator of bigotry, and being a Christian is reduced to being a warped and hateful ideologue.
The Christian scriptures are not a political manifesto. And despite repeated attempts to enlist Jesus for the cause of socialism or capitalism, he is not a card-carrying member of either team.
The Reverend Peter Kurti is a Research Fellow with the Religion and the Free Society Program at The Centre for Independent Studies.
